Who loves palindromes?

Books Read, September and October 2009

I forgot to keep track of my September reading, so some of this is a half-remembered reconstruction:

Books

The Julian Kestrel Mysteries – Sometimes it is a little sad to stumble across a series of books written by an author who is no longer living. Once you’ve finished the series, you’re left without the happy anticipation of a new adventure featuring one of your favorite characters. The Julian Kestrel mysteries would be a good pick for anyone who enjoys fiction set in the regency era AND murder. I’ve read three of the four books in this series.

Cut to the Quick – Kestrel is introduced in this volume, where an acquaintance of his is saddled with an inconvenient fiancee. Kestrel is a regency dandy and he uses his supposed preoccupation with cravats to lure his murder suspects into not taking him seriously. Things don’t go well for Kestrel when he is invited to a house party and an attractive female corpse shows up in his bed.

Whom the Gods Love – A paragon of society is bludgeoned to death, and the murder victim’s father asks Kestrel to solve the murder. Kestrel ends up untangling a complicated history of deceit, as the murder victim wasn’t the man he appeared to be.

Devil in Music – Kestrel’s most personal case takes place in Italy, where he investigates a cold case in which a patron of the arts is murdered on the evening a mysterious young English tenor goes missing.